Theory and Practice

All of the foregoing establishes the astronomical underpinnings of medieval medicine as it gradually evolved through antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. This system of medicine is generally known as Galenic medicine but it is obvious that many thinkers and practitioners were involved in sculpting the form medicine took in the Western World. There were always conflicting views though the basic scheme was the same. ¹ The cosmology of Plato and Aristotle, along with the medicine of Hippocrates and Galen, were the forces that shaped medieval medicine and this was not to change until after the Renaissance when the impact of the Enlightenment was first felt.